The state of Alabama becomes the second state (after Ohio) to sue over delayed census redistricting data. The lawsuit also challenges the Census Bureau’s use of differential privacy on census results, which uses an algorithm to change some of the actual reported data.
Delayed Census Data
The complaint filed in federal district court in Alabama on Wednesday, claims the Bureau’s decision to delay data delivery until Sept. 30 and its decision to deliver the data to all 50 states simultaneously, was beyond its authority. The Bureau announced on Feb 12 that it would not meet its statutory deadline and would deliver the apportionment data 3 months late and the data states use for redistricting, 6 months late. The plaintiffs called this decision to delay as a result of Covid-19 a “legally irrelevant” excuse.
They also take issue with the Bureau’s decision to break from its traditional method of delivering data to states on a rolling basis in order to get data quickly to states with earlier election or statutory deadlines for drawing maps. Similar to the Ohio lawsuit, the Alabama complaint suggests that even if there is no way to deliver data before the statutory deadline, the Bureau is not making a good faith effort to get data to states as soon as possible – if it were, it would attempt to deliver on a staggered basis as it has previously.
Differential Privacy
Apportionment numbers when delivered will show the state population count for each state. In previous years, redistricting data, which gives detailed population numbers for small areas – would add up to the state population totals. That is, the population for every census tract or voting precinct in the state, if totaled, would equal the state population reported in the apportionment numbers reported to Congress. For the first time, the Bureau will be applying a statistical technique to the data that would actually change some of the population totals (and other demographic characteristics) in these smaller geographics in order to make it difficult to deconstruct census data and identify specific individuals – something that many IT professionals say is very easy to do with the increasing availability of high-powered computing.
The complaint alleges that this makes it impossible for the state of Alabama to perform its constitutional and statutory duties to equalize the population between its congressional, legislative, and other political districts.
“under differential privacy, the Alabama Legislature will not know the actual number of people, or relevant demographic makeup, in any census geography below the level of the State as a whole . . Forcing the State to redistrict with intentionally flawed data will impede Alabama’s ability to draw representative districts with near-equal populations, which is what the Constitution and one-person, one-vote jurisprudence require.”
The lawsuit asks the federal court to enjoin the Census Bureau from using differential privacy on the data and to compel the Bureau to deliver redistricting data to the states by the statutory deadline of March 31.
